Difficult Proposition

The Mets winning two of three in Washington over the weekend only makes me feel slightly better about the team as they enter the stretch that will more than likely define their season.

While it is only June 8th, and while there is an awful lot of season left, the Mets as a whole have to make you severely concerned about just where, exactly, they think they're going this season. In a stretch of 13 games against lowly opponents, the Mets should have gone 10-3. Instead, they stopped hitting, fumphered around for a week, picked up a rainout and managed to go 7-5. This includes a 2-4 road trip to Pittsburgh and Washington, two of the worst teams conceivable, and two teams that, no matter what Adam LaRoche may think, the Mets should have pounded.

Given that, this week alone, the Mets will be playing 6 games against two teams that they're going to have to outslug in order to win against, you can't feel all that confident about the team's chances.

The games over the weekend were a blur, at least to me. I've been dealing with assorted work-related nonsense and so I just barely had a chance to grok what was going on. I did catch most of Friday's game on the radio, but Saturday and Sunday pretty much happened behind my back. And given the way Saturday's game went, I didn't miss all that much. The Nationals appear to be a team that is more of a nuisance than a real threat. Their pitching staff seems to exemplify this. They have a bunch of pitchers who just don't look good, and who don't strike fear into your hearts. But every so often, they'll pitch a good game. Generally, it's against the Mets. The Mets will see themselves getting shut down by Shairon Martis or John Lannan. Usually it's a week or two after the Mets will paste them in a big victory, which makes it all the more annoying. It's been going on for a few years now, and I don't see it changing. But enough of the Nationals.

It's the Phillies and the Yankees we have to worry about this week, a pair of mashing first-place teams that, as I just said, the Mets are going to have to outhit in order to beat. Either that or the starters are going to have to become unconscious over the next 6 games. It's not impossible. Nothing's impossible. That's why they play the games. But if you look at the way the Mets have played over the course of the season, and particularly the past week, and you see that with the injuries and the inconsistency, putting together any kind of streak is a dicey proposition, you're not feeling very good about these next 6 games.

We'll see how this turns out.